Saturday, April 7, 2007

Filing a Complaint with the FCC is Easy

The real question is not a question of free speech, though Imus's apologists would have you believe it is.

The real issue is why CBS (owners of WFAN-AM) and NBC (his Cable TV simulcasters) are not RACING to fire Imus to see which is more anxious to remove its corporate imprimatur from the racist and sexist "jokes" being broadcast during family listening and viewing hours.

Since neither CBS nor NBC feels the need to respond to nor acknowledge correspondence from the public, our only recourse is to directly contact the government agency charged with protecting the public airways against indecency.

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

You can complain to the FCC about Don Imus. I filed a complaint online. I may be contacting the NAACP and other organizations to see if they will follow suit in filing a FCC complaint - maybe if they get enough fines they will pull the show. Here's the link to the FCC: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html The company that owns wfan is http://www.infinitybroadcasting.com

Reverend Al is sending in a formal complaint too: Sharpton said he was writing to the Federal Communications Commission about Imus' remarks.

"This is not some unemployed comic like Michael Richards," Sharpton said, referring to the "Seinfeld" actor who used the N-word and referred to lynching in a rant last year. "This is an established figure, allowed to use the airwaves for sexist and racist remarks." from: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/news/story?id=2829410

Imus is free to say anything he wants to say, but CBS (his radio employer) and NBC (his TV employer) are supposed to be answerable to the public for their use of the public airwaves, through our representatives in the Federal Communications Commission.

Don Imus can move his racism onto satellite radio with his old friend Howard Stern if he wants to (and if they'll have him).

(I have to believe the the Tennessee Volunteers are also embarassed that their national championship has been tarnished by these dirty old men on the radio. Your defense of the Vols as "prettier" is also demeaning their true accomplishments. Do you root for men's teams because they're more handsome than their opponents??)